Got my subscrip copy today, the spine was damaged in transit, oh well, good for clippings if not for keeping. A thick issue, 458 pgs.
A quick flick: the cover looks the same as the scan, the colours are subtle, a sight to behold (there's no neon lettering burning your eyes) yet it makes me wonder about that old saying 'green doesn't sell covers', if so, are they hoping Kate can overcome that? Though I think that idea comes from green being a difficult colour to reproduce attractively in the printing process, in newsprint it often comes out looking dull and dirty. No such fear with a glossy cover.
Straight to the edits: Kate's series is a continuation of the cover shot, same colour scheme throughout. She seems slightly more animated inside, but looks as if she's deep in thought about doing something else. To me, she looks angry and she's trying to hide it by pulling a blank face, but I still get the bad undercurrent. I don't get a good vibe. Kate's hairy lala is displayed behind fishnet knickers in one shot, that sums up couture for me. The credits read: 'Knickers, Kate's own'. Though I fully approve of hair, don't get me wrong on that point. No doubt this will be taken up as yet another trend she's responsible for, you know, humans having hair.
The Karen Elson edit... is where they got September's cover shot from, she's made-up the same and shot by Nick Knight again, the only difference is that there's no red writing all over the images, she's got a hat on in every shot used here, and they've digitally tweaked the colour towards orange. I don't mind Karen Elson at all, but really, to drag on the same visuals to the next month... even if this is a new editorial, it's no different to something we saw last month. I think they believe that shifting the colours slightly will make you think this is a new edit, because it's not the exact same red as that cover.
That said, was there not some rumour that Christy T was supposed to be on September's cover? Anyhow, maybe September's cover wasn't supposed to be Karen at all, but things conspired to see them need to use an image from another month's edit. Of course, I'm saying all this, and you'll see the scans and think this Oct edit looks nothing like Sep's cover. You'll be a kinder person than I am.
The Lily edit is part of a Rothko article, I'm initially interested in this because I find Rothko to be much more than just giant canvases of block colour; that whole thing about if so many people perished in wars, how can art represent the suffering of humans by drawing their bodies, when bodies are expendable, so we get a giant block of suffocating, morbid, terminal colour to represent the experience in some more immediate and applicable way. Well, that's my interpretation, there's also an article to read about the idea of darkness in general which mentions nothing much about the art, to be honest, Rothko's just a backdrop here. Lily just stands about the paintings with multi-coloured eyeshadow, looking terribly serious. But I like it.
Brideshead blah. Sorry, a series of b/w shots by Bruce Weber of the cast just messing around or posing for an artfully casual head shot.
The other editorial is the typical UK Vogue studio shoot.
As usual, the rest of the issue, with all its little articles looks really interesting, I can't wait to get into them. The sheer size of this issue means that with all my complaints, I don't feel cheated on content.
She could have bought it at the airport too.
It always annoys me that Kate is so airbrushed but, now that she's not, she looks quite old and tired.
Thanks!
